Back at "Brass Eye," the decision was made to air the pedophilia episode with no cuts once the threat of legal action from Collins began to dissipate. In the days leading up to the pedophilia episode, the print media responded to warnings of impending offensive material with a preemptive strike against the man they fear more than any other.
Morris is often compared to agit-prop comedians like Michael Moore and Mark Thomas, but while they deal with the political, Morris is far more interested in the social. A tall, handsome 38-year-old father of two, he doesn't speak to the media and cleverly timed his summer holiday in the South of France for the day after the show aired. It was a wise decision, because within hours of the first transmission, he had become the most hated man in Britain.
Previous episodes of "Brass Eye" had mostly appealed to a relatively small audience. Predominantly ABC1, the listeners tended to be young, media-literate and hip to the "in" jokes that come with a speed usually reserved for a swarm of flies hitting a speeding truck's windscreen.
But the hunt for pedophiles has become a virtual national sport, and newspapers, celebrities and members of the public are in a constant battle to see who hates pedophilia the most. It's no longer enough in tabloid Britain to abhor the physical, emotional or sexual abuse of children. If you don't think pedophiles should be hanged then you're accused of being soft on crime. If you don't think they should be castrated without anesthetic before being hanged, you run the risk of being condemned as a liberal, the worst insult imaginable in Britian's current climate of spittle-flecked hysteria.
It takes courage to swim against this particular tide in modern Britain and the sight of Morris dressed as Eminem with a baby doll attached by the mouth to his crotch, the news that child-killer Sidney Cooke had been blasted into space with only an 8-year-old child for company and the interview with a child actor posing as a victim of sexual abuse sent his critics into paroxysms of splenetic rage.
The day after the show was aired, Beverly Hughes, a member of the ruling Labour government went on national radio to condemn the program and denounce Morris. "Indescribably sick," she called the episode, before admitting that she hadn't actually seen it. She defended her precarious position by saying, "I don't think I ever want to see something as horrible as that and I don't understand anyone who would."
This rather limp justification was soon followed by a spate of press releases, radio interviews and attention-grabbing stunts by politicians from all parties as they jostled to see who could be the most publicly outraged.
But most worrying was the decision by Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell to go to the Independent Television Commission, British television's regulatory body, and demand a change in their methods. It was indicative of a Labour government which, rather than provide the liberal alternative after years of Conservative Party misrule, has instead proved itself to be as staunchly Victorian on social issues as its predecessors.
The ITC politely told Jowell to mind her own business, and when Channel 4 news interviewed her, the anchor suggested that she and her colleagues must "feel like idiots."
The program was trumpeted by the right wing as an example of what happens when you allow college-educated liberals unrestrained access to television. The News of the World, The Daily Mail and a host of other publications even accused Morris of actively promoting pedophilia.
In the middle of the furor, a nonplussed David Quantick, one of the writers on the show, was persuaded to grant interviews. He pointed out that as that episode of "Brass Eye" was aiming to satirize media overreaction on the issue and spark a debate, they had obviously succeeded. "I think a lot of people complained because it just had the word 'Paedophilia' in the title and that a lot of complaints seemed to be related to a program that didn't go out," he said.
"It wasn't a show mocking victims of pedophilia. It was a show about media attitudes to pedophilia and the way the media apparently exploits pedophilia." This merely provided a further cue for the critics, who promptly designed banner headlines telling their readers that the creators were "unrepentant" and "smug."
Next page: Secrets from Morris' childhood